"Xiao Bai, I want to use the Forge to make some blueprints. How do I do that?" Leng Xiyue found Xiao Bai beside a river, enjoying herself on a beach chair she had acquired from who knew where, and asked for advice.
Xiao Bai did not answer her question directly, but asked one of her own. "Do you know why soul space is also called mental space?"
Leng Xiyue paused, then looked at the beach chair beneath Xiao Bai. Seemingly grasping something, she lowered her head in thought.
A moment later, Leng Xiyue held out a hand, and an AK-47 appeared in it.
"Not bad. You catch on quickly. In soul space, you can summon anything you imagine out of thin air, as if you were in an incredibly lucid dream. You'll get realistic feedback, too. The same principle applies to this chair beneath me. These things are essentially extensions of your consciousness. Only Soul Rings and things in a spiritual form like me can be brought inside in their actual state."
"Mm, I think I get it." Leng Xiyue nodded, then continued experimenting with the AK-47 in her hands.
She understood what a firearm did and roughly how it worked, but could not remember its entire internal structure. Thus, although the AK in her hands felt just like a real gun and could fire bullets, it felt more like a realistic replica overall.
Still, with its function, specific appearance, and corresponding means of output established, she could leave the rest to the Forge to perfect.
Leng Xiyue tried submitting her idea to the Forge and soon received its feedback. She felt something new appear in her mind, and the structure of the AK before her grew increasingly clear. She now knew every component like the back of her hand.
With a thought, the AK before her instantly disassembled, its various parts floating in front of her.
With another thought, those components swiftly assembled according to her wishes, soon returning to their original form.
If she had someone manufacture these parts in the real world and assembled them using the method she had just tried, Leng Xiyue was certain she could recreate a genuine AK-47.
The Forge was like a supercomputer, automatically working out the original structure of whatever item Leng Xiyue envisioned. The more detailed her idea, the closer the result would be. Even if the reconstructed structure differed, its function would strictly match what Leng Xiyue had imagined, while also being the optimal solution within the corresponding resource constraints.
However, since this was reconstruction, it also meant the Forge would provide no feedback whatsoever if her understanding of a product was too shallow. For instance, Leng Xiyue tried envisioning a description of a Nuclear Fusion Engine, but she knew nothing about its means of output, energy conversion process, or structure, only its ultimate effect. Such a complex product could not be perfected directly through the Forge. Nuclear bombs and the like were no different.
This also meant that most products from anime and science fiction games could not be realized. After all, they were imaginary things with no theoretical basis.
A Nuclear Fusion Reactor was another example. If she were a researcher at the forefront of that field and used the Forge to put her theories into practice again and again, she would surely obtain satisfactory results.
It was like an aid that filled the gaps in her own half-baked expertise. She did have some knowledge, after all. She had once been hooked on games like Battlefield, Hearts of Iron, and Civilization, and had unwittingly learned much of the relevant history and development of weaponry along the way. She knew something about aircraft, tanks, and warships, too.
With the Forge's assistance, recreating equipment that was not too technologically advanced, or was simply familiar, became possible. She could also find ways to conduct localized research to improve its suitability. Vehicles that required engines could be modified into models powered by soul power, using a Soul Master to do the engine's job and thus compensate for shortcomings in industry.
Take bullets and artillery shells, for example. If the corresponding mineral resources did not exist on the Douluo Continent, could soul power replace gunpowder? Soul Masters could use soul power to unleash skills, so surely it could produce explosive force as well?
Blueprints alone would certainly not suffice for these localization projects. She would also need a professional team to help with the research. Still, Spirit City was teeming with talent, so assembling such a team should not be a problem.
At that thought, Leng Xiyue hurriedly recalled several more rifle models. This time, however, they came from much earlier periods. She recreated rifles from World War II, World War I, and even the mid-to-late nineteenth century.
This was Leng Xiyue's money-making scheme.
The arms business was undoubtedly an untapped ocean of opportunity on the Douluo Continent. It was hard to imagine that, with civilian development having reached such heights, military tactics were still stuck at cavalry charges. Even Spirit City's guards and patrols wore armor. Presumably, when war broke out, they simply grabbed blades and hacked at people, no different from the Middle Ages.
Firearms were undoubtedly a good choice for "helping" them elevate their warfare.
Of course, Leng Xiyue was not arrogant, nor did she believe any casually made firearm would drive people wild. At the very least, it had to reach the level of Tang San's Godly Zhuge Crossbow to possess enough competitive strength to influence the course of a war.
In terms of craftsmanship, the Godly Zhuge Crossbow required even finer work than firearms, with smaller, more complicated parts. Yet even such a complex product could be mass-produced by the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Naturally, firearms, with their comparatively simpler structures, could also be manufactured. At worst, their output would be lower than that of an arms factory using machinery.
Objectively speaking, the power of the Godly Zhuge Crossbow and other hidden weapons could not be underestimated. The earliest matchlocks and flintlocks were cumbersome without possessing the Godly Zhuge Crossbow's power, nor did they have the potential to completely overturn cavalry charges. She therefore ruled them out outright and started directly with rifle models from the mid-to-late nineteenth century.
Judging by the value of Hidden Sand Shadow, even without some sucker paying an inflated price, it should still fetch several thousand Gold Soul Coins at auction. Even if sold on a large scale, charging several hundred to a thousand Gold Soul Coins apiece should be no problem. That would put the Godly Zhuge Crossbow's market price at around two to three thousand.
Both of these hidden weapons bring in profits dozens of times their cost. Surely I can make a rifle out of ordinary steel and sell it for one or two hundred Gold Soul Coins?
Although ordinary rifles could not match those two weapons' burst damage at close range, they had greater reach. Unlike those things, they also did not require ages of reloading bolts after every shot. For an army, firearms capable of sustaining combat were clearly better suited to standard issue.
Sell a few tens of thousands first, then make a few "tiny" technological upgrades and bring out an improved version to keep fleecing the suckers. That's perfectly reasonable, right?
After all, Tang San initially lacked the ability to mass-produce hidden weapons, and it would be more than a decade before the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect began mass production. She could use that time to sell these antique models to people from both of the Two Great Empires, raking in money to trade for other things. By the time Tang San wanted to sell his Godly Zhuge Crossbows, she would probably be selling AKs or MG-series machine guns. By then, not even a dog would use a Godly Zhuge Crossbow.
Finding buyers would certainly not be a problem. The Two Great Empires would spare no effort in expanding their armaments to guard against Spirit Hall. They would undoubtedly buy a weapon that allowed ordinary people to inflict casualties on Soul Masters like mad.
The main issue was preventing reverse engineering. Still, since the Forge could reconstruct structures, it should also be possible to introduce some innovations on that foundation.
Before that, the most important thing was to promote the superiority of this new "line up and shoot" tactic, giving them the illusion that enough firearm-equipped troops could slaughter Spirit Hall in a war.
In truth, reconstructing firearm blueprints was merely the Forge's most basic application. These weapons were not particularly technologically sophisticated, and her ambitions for technological development certainly did not end there.
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